The Morning After Wk 14 - Beating Philadelphia
Dallas used a big night from all corners of the roster to take down the NFC Champions.
The buildup to Dec. 10 has been gaining steam for weeks.
This would be a day of reckoning for the Dallas Cowboys roster and the 2023 season. Everything they have done to this point had convinced folks that too much has changed about them. We are relatively sure that the bar will be moved again, anyway, but the point remains clear — this team badly needed a win against a team of consequence to show the world they don’t just beat up on patsies.
Well, there are certainly a few ways to process yet another 20-point victory from the Dallas Cowboys as they demolished the Philadelphia Eagles 33-13.
First, we should start with the fact that Dallas continued to drill teams at home at a remarkable rate and continue the NFL’s longest home winning streak. In those seven wins at home in 2023, they have never had fewer than 30 points. They have blown out nearly every team but Seattle, it seems, as their 279-108 margin of victory in these home games is something that Nebraska or Alabama may have posted over the years, but NFL teams don’t do this.
Philadelphia was supposed to change that Sunday. After all, you don’t want to play those Eagles coming off a loss when they will be determined to set things right and stop the bleeding. Dallas still needs help to fully take away the top of the NFC East, but Philadelphia needed this game to avoid handing the entire NFC to San Francisco – something these two mortal enemies can probably agree on is to avoid a trip to play the 49ers at their place in the playoffs.
Not only did they not change that direction of their nose-dive, but they seemed to confirm most of the alerts we had about the Eagles heading into this game. They could not generate offense like they once did as they did not score a single offensive touchdown. Imagine the chances of beating a team that scores no fewer than 30 points in their home stadium if the Eagles defense was going to outscore their own offense on Sunday night.
The Cowboys job was to do what we talked about in our pregame piece this week and it seems they thought the same thing. It was a chance to play the Eagles coming off a brutal stretch in their schedule and also the Cowboys enjoying a 10-day break between games. They should make sure that they keep the Eagles defense on the field and dealing with a physical game plan.
Yes, Dallas has turned into more of a pass-first operation, but I absolutely know how Mike McCarthy understands the concept of punishing an opponent into submission. He believes that December football is more a war of wills than it is a finesse game. If you get a chance to play a team that is hurting, you make them hurt more. You run the ball 32 times and keep them on the field for nearly 37 minutes. You start the game with ground and pound and you build a lead by banging it up in there and you are putting deposits in the bank early of physical football because the cumulative toll of those body blows will pay massive dividends as the night goes along.